


It Is What it Is

by Likewise



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221 Baker Street, All Sherlock wants to do is help, Comfort, Denial of Feelings, Emotional, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Heart-to-Heart, Heartache, Hurt John Watson, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, John is a Mess, Late at Night, Long One Shot, M/M, Night Terrors, Nightmares, One Shot, Possible One Shot, Rain, Rainy London Night, Rainy Night, Seriously he loves him so much, Sharing a Bed, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson, Sherlock quotes, Surpressing Feelings, Theme surrounding Rain, Touchy-Feely, angsty, embracing, trying to be a bit poetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 14:19:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11533995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likewise/pseuds/Likewise
Summary: It was as the restless thrumming rain accompanied with gregarious booms of thunder clattered and crashed the windows of 221 Baker street, that John jolted up from yet another night terror.  Left dazed, shaking and afraid, Sherlock’s deduction skills are obviously quick to see right through John’s destructive state. But does Sherlock have the right skills for helping him? Is he even the right person to comfort him through such a cruel night? Left with only the rain outside and the engulfing dark night, emotions seem to have no place to hide tonight, even the ones he denies to even exist.“It's not okay.”“No...but it is what it is.”Loosely inspired off of the season 4 scene and quote, and many other moments in the entire series, this story takes place around Season 1-2.





	It Is What it Is

 

It was when violent and roaring thunder hit the skies that John jolted up from his sleep. As his hands were tightly gripping the sheets below him, sweat was dripping profusely down his forehead and breaths were quickly escaping him. Breathing in quick, shallow gasps, John forced it in himself to bring them down to level slowly. His heart was practically pounding out, pressuring his entire chest with each turbulent push against the chest beating, racing, pulsing, and thumping, it wouldn't stop, the pressure wouldn’t stop. Feeling the touch of his dampened blankets through both his palm and fingers and feeling his sweat drenched shirt stick to his chest, his audible gasps soon were brought to a pace with time in between each following breath. Rain clattering and crashing down outside his window, his hands slowly released their grasp on his restrained thin sheets. Slowly peering at the room suffocated in dark light, he was left to only listen to his own shallow breathing and the downpour of the restless thrumming rain accompanied with gregarious booms of thunder. With every strike of thunder, he flinched, while his whole body continued trembling. He didn't feel like a human but a cowering dog and it made him angry at himself for being for having to continue living with a war that he stopped fighting.

_Water _.__ His parched throat screamed for it. Glancing at his side to the red light illuminating from his alarm clock rested atop his nightstand, it read 3:38 am. Pulling the sheets off his body, he raised one hand to wipe off the sweat from his face and brought his legs to the side of the bed. Placing his feet on the cold wood floors beneath his bare feet gently stood up. Subconsciously he wrapped his arms around himself as he began to walk to his door. A sickly feeling humidity engulfed John’s body with each quiet step he took, he took a stop by leaning his head forward on his door before opening it, feeling his head bang on and on the inside like a hammer smashing and bashing down on a nail. Opening the door, he observed the hall. Darkly lit with only the night’s lighting, and being illuminated by the lightning every other minute. The entire flat was silent, besides that of the restless rain outside. John continued his slow and hushed walk to the stairs.

 

_Water. Water. Water._ Over and over again his mind and body continued screaming the want to him. He didn’t want to wake his flatmate up but yet, the stairs slowly creaked below his bare feet. Finally making it to the bottom, he slowly made his way to the kitchen hoping that no one was already down here to see him in this state, this horrid state.Trembling, he reached his arm to the cupboard to grab a glass and fill it with water from the nearby sink. Bringing the glass shakingly to his mouth, he finally felt the soothing and much needed cool water enter with each nervous and plentiful gulp of water. Placing the glass to his side, he emitted a slow sigh as he placed his arms on the adjacent counter’s chilling marble edge and his head peering below him.

 

“Your night terrors are back.” said a voice behind him. John jolted up and quickly turned around. He stayed silent and brought his eyes to the dark figure in the living room.  
“Trembling, sweat, the time, symptoms of a fever, exhausted every morning and day, your-” his flatmate was cut off.  
“Sherlock...It’s...It’s really not a good night.” Placing his own hand to rub against his left temple, John reached for his water and started walking back to the stairs. Being close enough to see his flatmate, Sherlock’s black curls were draped across his forehead. Not unexpectedly, he was wearing his tousled and wrinkled silk, blue robe along with his gray and rumpled shirt and loose pants. Sherlock brought himself to a few steps closer to John, bringing himself to say something but then cutting himself off to say his name.

“John.”  
“Sherlock, honest to god what? Why are you even awake?” John retorted.  
“I’ve been observing your behavior an-”  
“You’ve been _observing _me?”__ John scoffed with a vexed expression _ _“_ Really? _Is that all I am to your little fantasy world? Just some little experiment, some deduction? My pain is none of your concern. Stop trying to give me some sort of diagnostic, I don’t need it.”  
Hesitantly Sherlock continued“...You’ve been waking up every night approximately around 3:30 am” Sherlock studied the circles around John's eyes, and the sagging of his shoulders, all he wanted to do was to reach out to him.

 

 

John annoyingly glanced to the side avoiding anymore eye contact and rose his hand as a signal to stop. His expression almost seemed even more exhausted than how it began “I'm going back to bed, Sherlock.” John felt as though he was about to break, for keeping up with the facade that he was okay, especially with the so-called greatest detective was too much and because the terrors of every night were too fucking suffocating for one person let alone with days of continuous horror.

Overwhelmed, he turned straight around and headed back up the stairs. He stopped when he reached his door with his hand on the doorknob. The room he had felt completely suffocated in every single night halted him completely. Leaning his head on the door he felt tears escaping his eyes without control. His body turned around and with his back to the door, he slowly slid to the ground. His head and arms found their way atop his knees and within his own grasp his tears traced down his cheeks and dropped the floor. He brought it in himself to cry silently so that Sherlock wouldn't hear from down the stairs, yet faint footsteps were heard from the stairs. Sherlock stared at the small figure huddled on the floor against the wall.

“John,” he said gently. John only continued his weeping. Sherlock slowly made his way to space next to John, crouching down to sit next to him on the floor. With his back against the wall, he peered over to the weeping man beside him. Few minutes passed with only the sounds of the rain and John’s hushed weeping. “...Three to four chances you never go back to bed after a night terror, I can tell when you lie.” Sherlock said quietly. With the cluttered tapping of the rain surrounding the flat, he had to find a way to get to John.

“You’ve never been just an experiment to me If that's what you believe...I just…..I’’ Sherlock hesitated with his next choice of words. “I just...care...a lot, about you I mean. I’m not a “people person” so I don’t know what exactly to do when I see you like this. I don’t sleep because my mind never stops racing, deducing, storing, calculating and hypothesizing- and through all of this you’re never off my mind John Watson. I want to help. I- I need to help.” Hesitantly and awkwardly he placed an arm around him. John leaned into his chest continuing to weep. Sherlock held tightly to the smaller man as the clattering rain hit the windows of 221 Baker Street. He had never embraced someone he cares so much about this, not with John. His heart that he had always denied to having emotions felt as though it was about to fracture, for as much as Sherlock loved his companion, he knew he was entirely the wrong person to do this, but yet his heart ached at the agony he could clearly see John in. How could someone who relentlessly thought of others before himself be the one to have so much of it? He was the wrong person to do this, he repeatedly thought. _I'm the wrong person to do this_

 

The pitter-patter of the thumbing rain engulfed all sound and pacing of both their heartbeats, and as if the rain was a soothing lullaby, Sherlock’s hand stroked along John’s hair and neck. Sherlock noticed that eventually John’s breathing slowed down and his sobs came down to sniffing. With the two of them in the embrace, they were left only to hear the sounds of the drumming of the rain, and for a few moments that exactly what they did. “...Do you want me to leave?” there were a few moments of silence before the faintest whisper was heard from John. “No”. He looked down below at the man and brought his hand to the side of his cheek rubbing across it and his hair slowly. With a low meek and soft voice, John spoke up.

“Sherlock?”  
“Yes?”  
“... I'm afraid.”  
“Of what?”  
“Being alive.”  
Sherlock thought carefully of his next words “Most people statistically are...It’s okay.”  
“No, it’s not okay.”  
“No...but it is what it is.”

Gently Sherlock rose to his feet and offered a hand down to the man below. Pulling John back up on his feet, Sherlock turned to open the bedroom door of John’s room. “Is there anything you need John..did whatever I say work?’’ John’s mind screamed at him for his embrace again. _Yes. Please stay with me. Stay. _“Yes, ..thank you, Sherlock, you helped.” The corners of Sherlock’s lips formed a very small smile and with that, he nodded at his companion and began his walk to the stairs. “Wait.” Sherlock stopped to turn to John. _Don’t go. _“Can- um is there any way that you-” John twiddled his thumbs avoiding eye contact. “Will-” John couldn’t seem to get the words out.____  
“Do you want me to spend the night through with you, John?” John looking down at the floor, and nodded.  
“Yes.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sherlock smiled to John “Couldn't get enough of me could you, what is your blog, not enough? I’d say you’re practically obsessed with me with John.” John chuckled exhaustingly and nudged the fellow man’s arm. “You utter cock.” Looking at John’s smile and sharing that light laughter of his reminded Sherlock again just how much he loves John Watson as if every moment he’s reminded never surpasses the next. It has never been a lie that his brain works as a restless hard drive only storing the most important pieces of information and this affection, this passion, and this warmth in his chest that reaches every nerve in his body igniting everything about himself that he denies exist always is stored. _Every time he’s felt it._ No matter how hard he tries to delete all of it for the sake of John, __it always comes back.__

 

 

First John slipped into bed having his body facing the wall and his back to what was going to Sherlock’s side. Seeing that John was awkward to the intimacy due to all what had happened through the night, Sherlock knew this was expected considering the fetal position. Laying soldier style with his hands on his stomach, Sherlock spoke up. “Are you listening to it?” John turned his body to face Sherlock. “What? Do you mean the rain?” Sherlock pointed his finger upwards “Yes. The rain. Outside.” John ruffled his eyebrows with the annoyed expression he held at his remark. “Yes I get it, what's your point?” With the two’s average snapping, the strange tension felt as though it was lifted and it not, slightly.

“About what you said about being afraid of life...life surrounds all of us. The rain outside, the world is going on outside and will continue to after us. Being alive, it's boring really, breathing and consuming. It's not being alive that’s terrifying but what you make of it and what you can experience from it, seeing the worst of humans. I’ve seen it and so have you. Fear is wisdom in the face of danger, it’s nothing to be ashamed of really. And from what I’ve experienced knowing you, is that fear feels less when you have a friend.You once corrected me by saying that alone doesn't protect me, friends do and in my case friend.”  
Sherlock turned his body to face John only looking at him. John slowly extended his arm lightly pressing with the tips of his fingers, hesitating, but then finally placing his hand on Sherlock’s chest. “...I love you, you know that right?”

"I’d be lost without my blogger.”

 

John found himself in the embrace of Sherlock again, head resting underneath his and for the first time in what seemed like forever sleep was by far the easiest thing in the world. Eyelids becoming gradually heavier, he was left to only listen to his placid breathing, the gentle pelting of rain on the window and hushed breaths of Sherlock Holmes.

_“I love you, John.” _the faintest whisper that drifted him into weightless sleep.__

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! Thank you so much for reading, I have never written fanfic before this but working long on this short writing was so much fun. This idea had been on my mind for forever and finally working myself up to do this was so worth it! Any comment is welcoming, I hope you enjoyed :) 
> 
> (I think I might have a short idea for an epilogue, but it all depends on the reaction to this fic.) 
> 
> Again thank you so much! :)


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